Deliciously Obedient (18 page)

Because
if you have to feel lost anyhow, it might as well be with a gorgeous,
creamy, divine woman in bed, right?

The
expected hard-on descended on him slowly, but with a lingering effect
Lydia soon noticed. She took a step back and grinned a half smile.
“Even now?”

His
kiss came out of nowhere, his body finding her mouth without thought.
Dry lips soon turned wet as he was tender, then eager, then
insistent, her lips parting for his tongue, his neck aching as he
bent down to touch as much of her as was polite in public, wanting
her with such desperation he vaguely wondered if he could just take
her off into one of those doctor on-call rooms that people on
television shows were always locking and using for afternoon delight.

Or
a stairwell?

Elevator?

Expecting
her to pull away, instead she melted into it, needing comfort,
too—and he remembered Mike’s apartment. Before he’d left town,
Mike had given him carte blanche to use the place. Not as if Jeremy
hadn’t, plenty of times. He’d given up his own apartment years
ago, instead settling for a patchwork of places on the rare stretches
he found himself in the city.

Could
he suggest it? Should he?

Lydia
pulled back at just the right moment, breathless and flushed. “This
feels really dirty,” she said.

If
that was supposed to make him feel bad, he must have some really
screwy wiring, because all it did was make him want her more.

Sandy’s
appearance at that exact moment pushed every boundary of how much he
could keep it together. “Get lost on the way to finding coffee?”
she said in a cheerful voice. Expecting sarcasm, Jeremy was disarmed
by her genuine joking.

Meribeth
was right behind her. No Alex, thank goodness.

“
Um,
sort of,” Lydia murmured, running a hand through her hair. They
hadn’t even made it to the elevator.

The
two older women exchanged a glance. Meribeth looped her arm through
Sandy’s, the women sharing a meaningful look. “We’re going to
grab a coffee nearby and talk. You don’t need to get us anything.”
And with that, they walked away, heads together and giggles coming
after ten paces.

It
felt like permission.

It
should have felt like a reproach.

“
That
was awkward,” Lydia mumbled.

“
You
think
that
was awkward?” he sputtered, finally finding his
voice. “How about the fact that we just plumbed each other’s
faces for the past God-knows-how-long while the janitor went past us
on a vomit mission?”

“
You
are such a romantic.” But she reached for his hips, fingertips
playing with the band of his jeans, his zipper feeling like a
chastity belt. A small groan of anticipation vibrated in the back of
his throat like a gong.

“
Am
I a pervert for wanting sex right now? My grandma’s down the hall
and she might be dying, and all I want is…” She sighed, leaving
the thought unsaid, those magic nails scratching lightly against the
small of his back as he struggled not to take her right there, in the
hallway, next to a cart marked
Colostomy supplies
.

“
You,”
he said, completing the thought. Pulling back, he grabbed her hand,
and five sets of stairs later they were on their way to the car.

To
Mike’s place.

The
drive home felt so fake. Fall in Maine had a luminous quality, as if
Thomas Kinkade had gone into
Photoshop
and turned the leaves
into a mockery of what nature really could produce.

It
was real, of course, but it felt like pretend. Nothing in his own
reality was as breathtakingly gorgeous as this.

Except
for Lydia.

Pete
had assured him that everything was under control as the talent show
wound down, and Mike had a slow awakening to what he knew needed to
come next.

Leaving.

Performing
his act in the show had been great fun, his song well received. The
intended audience wasn’t there, though, so the reception was
bittersweet. The chorus of his slow melody looped through his mind as
he drove:

Come
with me behind the mask

Join
me in the shadows

Let
the darkness wash over us

As
our inner light sets us free

They
say we can’t do this

The
rules won’t allow it

But
all I want from life is

Authenticity

It
felt so...teenager-ish, but people in the crowd had held up their
smartphones and lighters, swaying with the tune on the third
go-around of the chorus. Mike had felt as if he were singing to the
universe, that the worlds stretched beyond Lydia and into some
communal part of himself, and now...

Now
he was just in his own way if he stayed.

He
was too close to the edge staying at the campground. Lydia and Jeremy
would come back, and when that happened, the pain he would cause
Lydia would be overwhelming. His disguise, his deception, the video,
the job in Iceland—and now, for her to learn he had been living at
her parents’ campground for the past month by casually bumping into
him?

No
way.

Fleeing
back to the city was the only rational answer. Finding his own
authenticity was more important than forcing anything on her.

When
he’d told Pete he’d be moving on a few days early, Pete had
started to offer a prorated refund, but Mike waved him off. According
to his latest financial reports, he was more than fine. Forever. He’d
never need to work another day in his life.

The
drive to the city wasn’t a reclaiming, though. It was a reckoning,
and he didn’t know what he planned for himself. Check his mail, get
the apartment in shape, regroup and maybe—just maybe—see if he
could help in any way, however small, with Lydia’s grandmother.
Connections through charities gave him the opportunity to pick up a
phone and get a top specialist there if need be. Money could also
help with so many issues that average folks, like Pete and Sandy,
might struggle with.

If
he could be of help, he would.

Cruising
through the tolls in New Hampshire, then driving down the thin strip
of the coast, he marveled at the giant sailboats that dotted the
inlet. Those wouldn’t be out on the water for long, with New
England’s storms soon thrashing the shoreline. Then again, a few
mild winters had made the legend of nor’easters seem to lose some
punch. Global warming? Climate change? Who knew. All it meant to him
was a brief interference with going to and from business meetings and
trips to make deals. For the past ten years he felt as if he hadn’t
done much in nature other than fitness runs and the occasional
outdoor charity event.

A
month at the Charles’ campground had changed all that.

The
sterile apartment he was headed to would be a distant memory soon.
His plan was to pack everything up, ditch the lease and start anew.
But first, there was lingering business to take care of.

Lydia.

And,
to a lesser extent, Jeremy. Sending his best friend on a mission had
succeeded—a bit too wildly, he confessed to himself, the memory of
watching their bodies from the sea kayak now so jarring that he
gripped the steering wheel with a death force. Jealousy wasn’t the
word for it—he never felt that when it came to being with a woman
with Jeremy.

The
correct name for what he felt was
regret
.

And
pain.

Jeremy
was the man Lydia wanted now. He’d found his way into her body and,
perhaps, into her heart. But the trick with Jeremy was that he was
like a puppy, easily distracted by shiny new things.

What
would happen when the shine wore off Lydia?

The
thought made his gut ache and his fingers twitch, because for as much
as Jeremy was enjoying her—lavishing her with attention and
lust-filled trysts in the crisp Maine woods—Mike knew exactly what
came next.

Jeremy
would leave.

Aside
from Dana, that was exactly what Jeremy had done with every woman
he’d ever dated. A few weeks, a month or two at most, and he was
gone, his interest fed and sated, his desire thwarted by some
immature sense of what it meant to love and be loved. Mike wasn’t a
psychoanalyst and, frankly, he had no desire whatsoever to try to
figure out that part of Jeremy’s brain.

But.

What
if this was like Dana? Jeremy had been so heartbroken it had shocked
Mike, vibrating to his core, making him question what he thought he
knew about his friend. The three had shared everything—time, money,
a bed—for nearly a year, and when she’d balked at the question of
permanence Jeremy had tentatively suggested, her leaving crushed him.

Tryst
after tryst and drunken lovers on various beaches worldwide had
seemed to help Jeremy heal, but the lingering sadness made Mike
wonder…was Jeremy as immature as he’d assumed? Was the cavalier,
goofy man-child image just that?

A
facade?

As
disingenuous as Matt Jones had been?

Lost
in thought, he barely noticed the Massachusetts border, eyes glossing
over the cheap liquor store that New Hampshire hawked (no sales
tax!). Mike slid through the tolls, on his way to clean up a past he
no longer identified with. The apartment now was a transaction to
manage: pack, cancel the lease, move and forge ahead.

There
was no emotional reality there.

“
Nice
place,” Lydia said with a low whistle. Sleek gray and all windows,
it looked like a playboy’s apartment. “This is yours?” Whoever
lived here was the type to have a closet full of Armani. Not someone
dressed like Jeremy, in faded jeans, an MIT hoodie and Skechers.